Non-verbal clauses 153
As redundant functional elements (including prepositions in some situations)
are omissible, it might be claimed that in (13-16) an underlying verb has been
deleted/omitted. Regardless, on the surface the clauses appear to simply have
PP predicates, which is what is of relevance here.^1
In quantificational clauses, numeral and quantifier predicates establish the
number of the group denoted by the subject.
(21) Mored dhalem kellas sagame'.
student in class twenty-five
‘There are twenty-five students in the class.’
(22) Gedhung raja e Jakarta bannya'.
building big at Jakarta many
‘There are many big buildings in Jakarta.’
(23) Burus e Madura sakone'.
dog at Madura few
‘There are few dogs on Madura.’
Here the numeral sagame' ‘twenty-five’ and the quantifiers bannya' ‘many’ and
sakone' ‘few’ are predicated of their subjects. Some quantificational clauses
indicate possession by establishing the number of a group with a possessor.
(24) Na'-ana'-na Atin empa'.
RED-offspring-DEF Atin four
‘Atin has four children.’
(25) Mored-da Siti tello polo.
student-DEF Siti thirty
‘Siti has thirty students.’
(26) Jendela-na bengko rowa bannya'.
window-DEF house that many
‘That house has a lot of windows.’
As (26) shows, this construction does not require an animate possessor as here
bengko ‘house’ is the possessor. (24-26) are equivalent to possessive clauses
including a verbal predicate. So, (24-26) are functionally and propositionally
equivalent to (27-29), in which andhi' ‘have’ establishes the possession relation.
(^1) Note that as there is no tense morphology in the language, whether these sentences
refer to past or present states has no impact on the use of the copula. All the sentences
in (13-16) can refer to past states of affairs.